"Dire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of their enemies from the bones, and set it to boil. Among the hammocks moved the subchiefs, their eyes still shining with the light of battle, examining the wounded men and glancing at the preparations for the dire ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... Or at your Mother's side, in peaceful joy. But when hard frost congeals the bare, black ground, The trees have lost their leaves, & painted birds Wailing for food sail through the piercing air; Then you descend to deepest night and reign Great Queen of Tartarus, 'mid [Footnote: MS. mid] shadows dire, Offspring of Hell,—or in the silent groves Of, fair Elysium through which Lethe runs, The sleepy river; where the windless air Is never struck by flight or song of bird,— But all is calm and clear, bestowing rest, [28] After the toil of life, to wretched ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... speedy death. But the robust constitution of the athlete rose superior to the persecutions of his torturers, and to save further trouble he was barbarously murdered in his bed on the night of September 21. Piercing shrieks from the interior of the castle told the peasantry that some dire deed was being perpetrated within its gloomy walls. Next day it was announced that the lord Edward had died a natural death, and his corpse was exposed to the public view that suspicion might be averted. He was buried with the state that ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... man in a position of importance seems often not to see that he has it within his power to advance the fortunes of younger men by stepping out when he has served his time, while by refusing to let go he often works dire injustice and even disaster to ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... first invaded India in 1896, the writer was one of those sent to Bombay to work at the problem of its causation from the scientific side, thereby becoming interested in the life history of rats, which were shown to be intimately connected with the spread of this dire disease. Having for years admired Eha's books on natural history—The Tribes on my Frontier, An Indian Naturalist's Foreign Policy, and The Naturalist on the Prowl, I ventured to write to him on the subject of rats and their ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... the church. They had either strolled away as they came out or gone in to rest on the return. Stransom, besides, now faltered; he couldn't walk as of old. The omission made everything false; it was a dire mutilation of their lives. Our friend was frank and monotonous, making no mystery of his remonstrance and no secret of his predicament. Her response, whatever it was, always came to the same thing—an implied invitation to him to judge, if he spoke of predicaments, ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James
... reached her father's ears of a malignant being who was permitted to wander over the earth and tempt men in dire extremity with release from their troubles as the result of their concluding an unspeakable bargain. This being himself appeared to the father, and warned him that his daughter was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... santes. Si vous ne voules pas me servire, il est inutile que je vous parle de ce qui me regarde: si vous voules me protege, il ne faut pas me rendre La Vie plus malheureuse qu'il n'est. Si vous voules m'abandoner il faut me Le dire en bon Francois ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... stood looking at the movements of the men as they washed the decks, while Ithuel seated himself on a knight-head, and his chin resting on his hand, he sat ruminating, in bitterness of spirit, like Milton's devil, in some of his dire cogitations, on the atrocious wrong of which he had really been the subject. Bodies of men are proverbially heartless. They commit injustice without reflection, and vindicate their abuses without remorse. And yet it may be doubtful if either a nation or an individual ever tolerated ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... prosperity begins to mellow, And drop into the rotten mouth of death: Heere in these Confines slily haue I lurkt, To watch the waining of mine enemies. A dire induction, am I witnesse to, And will to France, hoping the consequence Will proue as bitter, blacke, and Tragicall. Withdraw thee wretched Margaret, who comes heere? Enter Dutchesse ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... on, Lady Fairweather became somewhat daunted by the dire predictions of chills and fever as a result of our long lying in the marshes; and one day she deserted the ship and sailed away on a bigger one. We thought she was to be gone only a little while, but she proved a real deserter and Gadabout ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... dire calamity that this class of writers have taken hold of the subject of slavery. It is a misfortune that slavery should be presented in a fictitious garb. I fear the consequences. It portends no good to the ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... point qu'on rendit de mauvais offices a personne par des railleries." The Marquis de La Fork tried to entertain His Majesty at the expense of an English nobleman. "Ce prince," says Dohna "prit son air severe, et, le regardant sans mot dire, lui fit rentrer les paroles dans le ventre. Le Marquis m'en fit ses plaintes quelques heures apres. 'J'ai mal pris ma bisque,' dit-il; 'j'ai cru faire l'agreable sur le chapitre de Milord.. mais j'ai trouva a qui parler, et j'ai attrape un regard du roi qui m'a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... He got inside their guard, aroused their own sense of past guilt, and so awakened some human fellow-feeling for the woman. When he was alone with her, what a mingling of kindness and severity! Surely she would carry away the memory of a wonderful friend who came to her in her dire need. Why did Jesus twice turn his eyes away to the ground? Was he ashamed to ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... magnifique colonne de marbre noir: N.... de Bourbon, dit le Duc d'Aumale, fils de Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, legitime de France, Duc de Maine, mort le 8 Septembre, 1708: enfin Philippe d'Artois, Comte d'Eu, et Connetable de France, mort selon son epitaphe a Micalice en Turquie, c'est-a-dire Nicopoli, le 16 Juin, 1397. Le Mausolee de celui-ci, qui est de marbre, est enferme dans une espece de Cage de fer, dont les barreaux n'empechent point qu'on ne puisse en approcher et y porter la main. Le Prince y est represente arme, mais sans casque et sans gantelets, pour marquer, ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... leave this room till I give you permission. I intend that you shall spend some days in solitude,—except when I see fit to come to you,—that you may have plenty of time and opportunity to think over your sinful conduct and its dire consequences." ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... "'Should any dire calamity befall the land of cotton, a thousand of our merchant ships would rot idly in dock; ten thousand mills must stop their busy looms, and two million mouths would starve for lack of food to ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... Tombavit in meas manus, Homo qualitatis et dives comme un Cresus. Habet grandam fievram cum redoublamentis, Grandam dolorem capitis, Cum troublatione spirii et laxamento ventris. Grandum insuper malum au cote, Cum granda difficultate Et pena a respirare; Veuillas mihi dire, ...
— The Imaginary Invalid - Le Malade Imaginaire • Moliere
... his breath, wondered; it was something she wanted him to do for her—which was exactly what he had hoped, but something of what trivial and, heaven forgive them both, of what dismal order? Most of all, meanwhile, he felt the dire penetration of two or three of the words she had used; so that after a painful minute the quaver with which he repeated them resembled his-drawing, slowly, carefully, timidly, some barbed ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... fear. Even as horses on the green steppes grazing, Hundreds scattered through lonely peacefulness, If shadow of cloud or red fox breaking earth Delude but one with dream of a stealthy foe, All are stampeded. Their frantic torrent draws in, With dire attraction, cumulative force, Stragglers grazing miles from where it started; On it thunders quite devoid of meaning. The tender private soul Thus takes contagion from the sordid crowd, And shying at mere dread of loss, Loses the whole ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... man of eminent character, the family immediately remove from the house in which he is buried and erect a new one, with a belief that where the bones of their dead are deposited the place is always attended by goblins and chimeras dire. ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... my text. Those words exemplify my work. "The earth is the Lord's." I therefore, George, give of my abundance to the Lord, meaning thereby the Lord's poor. I hate the Charity Organisation Society; but when I see a man or a woman or even a child in our rank of life struggling with dire poverty, when, after making strict inquiries, I find out that the poverty is real, then I help that man, woman, or child. I live, George, in a little house in Chelsea. I keep one servant, and one only. I do not waste money on motor-cars or gardens or antiquated mansions like this. I give to the ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... plait, pouvez vous dire nous le chemin a bas a Llanberis?" said Magnus, who was a capital ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... "An' it is my own that I've saved; she's gien hersel' to me for all time, an' we'll ask for your blessin' on us without any waitin'!" Tears filled the mother's eyes. She thought of another daughter. A dire instinct smote her of ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... be self-conscious after such dire experiences? What nation would not be tenderly sensitive as to its treatment by neighboring powers? What nation would not be even unduly keen to resent any appearance of an attempt to jostle it from ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... had gone. Silently he had slipped from his chair and disappeared. Uncle William, it might be mentioned in passing, had never quite forgotten Aunt Hannah's fateful call with its dire revelations concerning a certain unwanted, superfluous, third-party husband's brother. Remembering this, there were times when he thought absence was both safest and best. This ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... mistaken. The Church of Scotland, as represented by that majority which is now the Free Church, might have succeeded in carrying some such measure ten years ago, when the parish schools were yet in her custody; just as she might have succeeded seven years earlier in obviating the dire necessity which led to the Disruption, by acting upon the advice of the wise and far-seeing M'Crie.{10} But she was not less prepared at the one date to agitate for the total abolition of patronage, than at the other to throw open the parish schools ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... out this bloody tale; Record this dire eclipse, This Day of Wrath, this Endless Wail, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... B.C. 275 (a.u. 479)] but on coming to their assistance he was put to flight. A young elephant was wounded, and shaking off its riders wandered about in search of its mother; the latter thereupon became unmanageable, and as all the rest of the elephants raised a din everything was thrown into dire confusion. Finally the Romans won the day, killing many men and capturing eight elephants, and occupied the enemy's entrenchments. Pyrrhus accompanied by a few horsemen made his escape to Tarentum, and from there sailed back to Epirus, leaving Milo behind with a garrison ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... however, very much more talk of this kind over the hastily improvised meal, and small wonder for it. In a town of less than a thousand inhabitants, nearly thirteen hundred troops, with their inevitable camp followers, were forcibly quartered, filling every house and every barn, to the dire discomfort of the people. As if this in itself were not enough, the Hessian soldiery, habituated to the plundering of European warfare, and who had been sold at so much per head by their royal rulers to fight another country's battles, brought ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... times, the health of each one's "folks," and the condition of their own souls, could not be told all in a breath. He never failed, when he could detain her no longer, to bid her feel free to call on him whenever she found herself in dire need of a wise friend's counsel. There was always in his words the hint that, though he never had quite enough cash for one, he never failed of knowledge and wisdom enough for two. And the gentle Attalie believed both clauses ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Dire was the war between the Franks and the Greeks, for it abated not, but rather increased and waxed fiercer, so that few were the days on which there was not fighting by sea or land. Then Henry, the brother of Count Baldwin of Flanders rode forth, and took ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... party soon became known, in fact our anxiety, and all we did, and the sympathy we met with, and the help we obtained, would detain you much too long were I to tell you. But you will not be surprised to hear that the next heir to my wards' estates has intimated his knowledge that some dire misfortune has occurred to the three children on whom the property is entailed, your grandchildren. I, therefore, came home at once. I have consulted Mr. M., I have taken the ablest advice, and where could I have better than from him who is so interested in the matter, and so high in his profession?" ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... avec Akabah, point extrme atteint par l'Expdition; elle contient les rsultats du premier voyage de l'Expdition, c'est—dire: Sherm, Djebel el-Abiat, Aynouneh, Moghair-Schuaib, Mokna ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... a numerous family: his wife, his mother-in-law, a daughter of twenty and a litter of tots; the pay he earned correcting proof at a newspaper office was not enough for his needs and he used to suffer dire straits. He was in the habit of wearing a threadbare macfarland,—frayed at the edges,—a large, dirty handkerchief tied around his throat, and a soft, yellow, grimy ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... dvelopper, to unravel. devenir, to become. devin, m., seer. devoir, to owe, have to, be to. devoir, m., duty. dvorer, to devour, swallow up, consume, put up with. diadme, m., diadem, crown. dicter, to dictate, suggest. Dieu, m., God. diffrer, to postpone, delay. digne, worthy. dire, to say, speak. discerner (de), to distinguish (from). discorde, f., discord. discours, m., speech. disgrce, f., disfavor, downfall. disparatre, to disappear. disperser, to disperse, scatter. disputer, to fight for. dissimuler, to disemble, conceal. dissiper, to ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... magnanimite est assez bien definie par son nom meme; neanmoins on pourroit dire que c'est le bon sens de l'orgueil, et la voie la plus noble pour recevoir des louanges.' Could anything be further from the ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... 'backseesh,' which" Miss CHENNELLS writes, "I did not consider myself bound to give, as he never did anything for me." On two occasions, her heart warming, she coyly pressed a florin into his hand, with dire results. "He was," she records, "much worse after it" (the florin, which he seems to have taken neat), "and would, when driving, stoop down, and look through the front window of the brougham, shouting 'Backseesh!'" However, Miss CHENNELLS got ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... uttered in a tone of sincere surprise which to Cranbrook was very amusing. The conversation was now fairly started. The American told with much expenditure of eloquence the story of "the wrath of Achilles, the son of Peleus," and of the dire misfortunes which fell upon the house of Priamus and Atreus in consequence of one woman's fatal beauty. The girl sat listening with a rapt, far-away expression; now and then a breeze of emotion flitted across her features and a tear glittered in her eye and coursed slowly down ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... not the printer's. General Paralysis of the Insane is known to have this effect on the writing. It attacks its victims about the period of middle age—the age at which the deaths of all the Orvens who died mysteriously occurred. Finding then that the dire heritage of his race—the heritage of madness—is falling or fallen on him, he summons his son from India. On himself he passes sentence of death: it is the tradition of the family, the secret vow of self-destruction handed down through ages from father to son. But he must have aid: ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... Katy's wish, and she hastened to reply, going next to the nursery to confer with Mrs. Kirby. Dark were the frowns and dire the displeasure of that lady when told that her services would soon be no longer needed on Madison Square—that instead of going up the river as she had hoped, she was free to return to the "genteel and highly respectable ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... who was half dead with fear of an expose of her part in this unlucky love-affair, was additionally prostrated by the dire reversal of all her hopes by Samson Mountain's ultimatum. Mrs. Mountain, with the aid of a female servant, supported Julia upstairs, and Samson smoked on stolidly, taking no note whatever of the visitor's presence. Still in doubt of what Samson ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... Harmonie, Langue que fiour l'amour invents le ginie, Qui nous viens d'Italie, et qui lui vins des cieux, Douce langue du coeur, la seule ou la pensee, Cette vierge craintive et d'une ombre ofensie, Passe en gardant son voile et sans craindre les eux, Qui sait ce qu'un enfant peut entendre et peut dire Dans tes soupirs divins nes de l'air qu'il respire, Tristes comme son coeur et ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... had deprived them of all else that was dear and sacred to brave and honorable men! But how differently Father Ryan acted when the oppressed people of the South were restored to their rights, and when the great heart of the North went out in sympathy towards them in their dire affliction during the awful visitation of the yellow fever, when death reaped a rich harvest in Memphis and elsewhere, and a sorrow-stricken land was once more buried in ruin and desolation! It was then, indeed, ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... you I have sighed many a time at the contemplation of this dire necessity. You have a niece, the most beautiful and the most adorable of all nieces, and the sight of her charming face gladdens your heart. But you yearn for something more; you will not be satisfied until you have seen your little grand nephews trotting around. You will see them I earnestly believe. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... dire sounds and voices, the Princess scaled the long garden, skimming like a bird the star-lit stairways; crossed the park, which was in that place narrow; and plunged upon the farther side into the rude shelter of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... anything can be a cure for disappointment?' asked Sophy, in such a solemn, earnest tone, that Albinia was disposed to laugh; but she knew that this would be a dire offence, and was much surprised that Sophy had so far broken through her reserve, as to mingle in their conversation ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by, Faxon was becoming most conscious of. The watcher behind the chair was no longer merely malevolent: he had grown suddenly, unutterably tired. His hatred seemed to well up out of the very depths of balked effort and thwarted hopes, and the fact made him more pitiable, and yet more dire. ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... be better than that dire conflict between the expression of your mouth, and that of your eyes. Have you any hermetically sealed pleasant thoughts hidden behind that smooth brow, that you could be prevailed upon to call up for a few moments, just long enough to cast a ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... And what is the dire necessity and "iron" law under which men groan? Truly, most gratuitously invented bugbears. I suppose if there be an "iron" law, it is that of gravitation; and if there be a physical necessity, it is that a stone, unsupported, must fall to the ground. But what is all we really know, and ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... back into his lecture-room stride, "I think you'll find that the ... ah ... message so received is one indicating that the projector of such a message is in dire peril. He has, for instance, been badly injured, or is rapidly approaching death, or else he has narrowly ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... flood a frozen Continent Lies dark and wilde, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail; which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian bay Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk; ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... been unruly: where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say, Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death; And prophesying, with accents terrible, Of dire combustion, and confused events, New hatched to the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... latter's face. There was no man in Algonquin who could remain angry at Lawyer Ed and be hammered by him on the back. He was voted the most exasperating person in the world, by people of all ages, and many a time an indignant individual would announce publicly that dire vengeance was about to be launched upon his wicked head. But when all Algonquin waited for the blow to fall, presently Lawyer Ed and the injured party would appear in the most jovial companionship, and once ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... upon this great requisite, imagination, it seems somewhat prosaic to come down to saying that history requires accuracy. But I think I hear the sighs, and sounds more harsh than sighing, of those who have ever investigated anything, and found by dire experience the deplorable inaccuracy which prevails in the world. And, therefore, I would say to the historian almost as the first suggestion, "Be accurate; do not make false references, do not mis-state: and men, if they get no light from you, will not execrate you. ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... saloon exceeding wroth, breathing dire threats of legal proceedings against the line and the captain personally, but most of the passengers agreed that it would be an inhuman thing to leave the Adamant alone in mid-ocean ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... be too early for either, or for both, of these. Equally has it resisted temptation to touch on many topics—not strictly belonging inside the Southern Capitals—still vexed by political agitation, or personal interest. These, if unsettled by dire arbitrament of the sword, must be left to Time and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... the time being Banks was permitted to extricate his infantry from the toils, the remainder of his command was less fortunate. The general and his brigades reached Winchester in safety, but the road between that town and Strasburg was a scene of dire disaster. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... we yield it gladly; but the glow Fades as we sing. The dire, the fatal blow Fell, fell at last. Full, full in deadliest front Leading his legions, leading as his wont, The bullet wafts him to his mortal goal! And not alone War's thunders saw him die; Amid the glare, the rushing, and the roll, Glared, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... Veronique, as she shut the door; 'before that you will be back here again, my poor little Lady, trembling, weeping, in dire need of being comforted. But I will make up a good fire, and shake out the bed. I'll let her have no more of that villainous palliasse. No, no, let her try her own way, and repent of it; then, when this matter is over, she will turn her mind to Chevalier Narcisse, and there will ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... escaping their plain meaning. Trouble was undoubtedly brewing among the Sioux, trouble in which the Cheyennes, and probably others also, were becoming involved. Every soldier patrolling that long northern border recognized the approach of some dire development, some early coup of savagery. Restlessness pervaded the Indian country; recalcitrant bands roamed the "badlands"; dissatisfied young warriors disappeared from the reservation limits and failed to return; while friendly scouts told strange tales of weird dances amid the brown Dakota ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... are not, I admit it, fashioned on the prim style of London dandies and Italian fops; we are—the poorest of us—coarse a little at the hide, too quick, perhaps, to slash out with knife or hatchet, and over-ready to carry the most innocent argument the dire length of a thrust with the sword. That's the blood; it's the common understanding among ourselves. But we were never such thieves and marauders, caterans bloody and unashamed, as the Galloway kerns and the Northmen, and in all ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... always so penetrating! But don't tell, for the world. Old Bainrothe would never forgive me; and, as I once before told you in one of my savage moods, his enmity is dire—satanic!" ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... with the tide, and who approved of the Faith Healer's immersions in the hot Healing Springs; also a medical student who had pretended belief in Ingles, and two women weeping with unnecessary remorse for human failings of no dire kind. The windows were open, and those outside could see. Presently, in a lull of the singing, there was a stir in the crowd, and then ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... it for twenty years, and has taken part in all the work of pacification in these islands, in administering the holy sacraments to the soldiers and citizens—in all, serving God and your Majesty very religiously. At present he is in dire need, for he has been given no recompense for his services, and this country has no benefices or other ecclesiastical incomes from which he might be supported. We beseech that your Majesty be pleased to order some recompense to be ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... disasters. The German papers in particular, filled their pages with the most atrocious insults and jibes. Such was the situation in "Black Week." There was much ominous talk on the Continent about "the flowing tide." Only one obstacle prevented these dire prophecies from coming true. French and his little force possibly stayed the tide of a world conflict, through checking the rebel torrent between ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... weapons, even though they should but consist of a bow and arrows, the situation would not be altogether hopeless—for I possessed a very fair share of pluck and resource; but I felt that before I could effect my escape from my watchful custodians, and obtain these necessities, I might find myself in so dire a strait as to render them and all else valueless to me. Yet I would not suffer myself to feel discouraged, for I recognised that to abandon hope was to virtually surrender myself tamely to the worst that fate might have in store for me, and this was by no means my disposition; ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the least alarmed," answered Leslie, reassuringly. "He will not hurt us if we do not interfere with him. These creatures are only dangerous if attacked; then, indeed, they have been known to turn upon their assailants, with dire results. But ah! look there!— ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... plus nous induict a poursuivir et mettre avant la dicte matiere; c'est davoir masculine succession et posterite en laquelle nous etablirons (Dieu voulant) le quiet repoz et tranquillite de notre royaulme et dominion. Son fraternel, plain, et entier advis (et a bref dire le meilleur qui pourroit estre) fut tel; il nous conseilla de ne dilayer ne protractor le temps plus longuement, mais en toute celerite proceder effectuellement a laccomplisment et consummation de nostre marriage.—Henry ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... almost blinded by the pease, was soon overtaken and seized; and by this capture, the tranquillity of the garrison was soon restored, without that slaughter and bloodshed which every man had prognosticated at the beginning of this dire alarm. ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... Cabanis, wrath and of the strife Of hostile parties, and his dire defeat Who led the common people in the cause Of freedom for Spoon River, and the fall Of Rhodes, bank that brought unnumbered woes And loss to many, with engendered hate That flamed into the torch in Anarch hands To burn the court—house, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... sey'd place appeare to be capable to answer the ends above mentioned doth order that the p'ties inhabitinge there shalbe called there hence, & suffered to live without the meanes, as they have done no longer." This dire threat of the closing sentence may have been simply "sound and fury, signifying nothing," or Prescott may have been able to prove to the authorities that Nashaway was fit and waiting for its St. John, but found none willing for the service. In fact, its St. John was then a junior at ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... paid the penalty of death by hanging at Tyburn, on the 3rd September, 1782. In later years the death penalty for robbing mails was abolished, and at least one old sinner who robbed the Bristol mail eventually did remarkably well through having committed that dire offence against the laws, and by having been transported to the ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... so-called unsuitable match, the chance of which was more threatening than ever. For Annie had grown very lovely, and having taken captive the affections of the mother, must put the heart of the son in dire jeopardy. But Alec arrived two days before he was expected, and delivered his mother from her perplexity by declaring that if Annie were sent away he too would leave the house. He had seen through the maternal precautions the last time he was ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... death you are too sick to care whether you live or die. In some great convulsion of nature, a great typhoon, for instance, when the wind in its fury lashes the walls of the house till they writhe, and there are the shrieks of people in dire distress, and fire, and the crash of giant waves, and all that makes for horror, the shock of these brute irresponsible forces of nature is too tremendous for fear to obtrude. Thought is suspended—you are in an ecstasy of awful ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... circumstances, quite so, ma'am," answered Mrs. Flint, who would not have minded snubbing Miss Slowcum, but was anxious to propitiate both the rich widows; "under ordinary circumstances that is so, but in a dire moment like the present I think the ten minutes' grace might be allowed to Mrs. Dredge's ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... built by men who did a deed Of blood:—terrific conscience, day by day, Followed, where'er their shadow seemed to stay, And still in thought they saw their victim bleed, Before God's altar shrieking: pangs succeed, As dire upon their heart the deep sin lay, No tears of agony could wash away: Hence! to the land's remotest limit, speed! These walls are raised in vain, as vainly flows Contrition's tear: Earth, hide them, and ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... and relevant, but it must in some degree be a specialized memory. It must minister to the particular needs and requirements of its owner. Small consolation to you if you are a Latin teacher, and are able to call up the binomial theorem or the date of the fall of Constantinople when you are in dire need of a conjugation or a declension which eludes you. It is much better for the merchant and politician to have a good memory for names and faces than to be able to repeat the succession of English monarchs from Alfred the Great to Edward ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... dread evils which spread terror far and wide, and which Heaven, in its anger, ordains for the punishment of wickedness upon earth—a plague in fact; and so dire a one as to make rich in one day that grim ferryman who takes a coin from all who cross the river Acheron to the land of the dead—such a plague was once waging war against the animals. All were attacked, although all did not die. So hopeless was the case that not ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... her work and took out her handkerchief. She was one of those women who take refuge in tears when they find themselves at a disadvantage. Tears had always melted honest Tom, was his wrath never so dire, and tears would no ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... not go to people and say: "Stand and deliver me your inmost judgments." And suddenly he was aware of how far away he really was from them. Through all his ministrations had he ever come to know their hearts? And now, in this dire necessity for knowledge, there seemed no way of getting it. He went at random into a stationer's shop; the shopman sang bass in his choir. They had met Sunday after Sunday for the last seven years. But when, with this ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... told that the boys had all taken themselves off. They could not suspect what a dire calamity had befallen their leader, or a rescue party must have certainly ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... Paris, ou l'appelaient ses nombreux disciples, le soin de sa gloire et de sa fortune, Abelard confia a sa soeur sa chere Heloise et le gage precieux qu'elle portait dans son sein. Elle accoucha au Palet d'un fils d'une si rare beaute, qu'elle le nomma Astralabe, c'est-a-dire, astre brillant; mais l'absence de celui qu'elle adorait rendait moins vifs pour elle les doux plaisirs de la maternite; son ame expansive et brulante etait livree sans cesse a une inquiete et sombre melancholie qu'elle ne parvenait sans ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... one of the most gloomy days I had as yet seen. I found the Parliament had almost lost all their spirit, and that I should be obliged to bow my neck under the most shameful and dangerous yoke of slavery, or be reduced to the dire necessity of setting up for tribune of the people, which is the most uncertain and meanest of all posts when it is not vested with ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... furious storm, with dreadful roar, Shook Britain's isle from shore to shore, The raging sea, with thundering sound, Spread ruin, fear, and death around; And seem'd to tell throughout the land Some dire event ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... scrutinizing among heaps of rubbish, come upon a colony of lepers. In the town, but not of it, within the walls, but forbidden all ingress to the streets, there they dwell, a race of mournfullest Pariahs. From father to son, from mother to daughter, dire disease, horrid, polluting, is handed down, a certain legacy, making the body loathsome, and likening the divine face of man to a melancholy ape. Oh! the silent sadness, the inexpressible melancholy of those ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... I am not going with her, but am being dragged by force. Oh! whoever you are, may heaven bless you for having had pity on me in my dire misfortune. (Turns round and sees the Third Old Woman.) Oh Heracles! oh Heracles! oh Pan! Oh ye Corybantes! oh ye Dioscuri! Why, she is still more awful! Oh! what a monster! great gods! Are you an ape plastered with white lead, or the ghost of some old hag ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... sleep for Philip that night, and, by the light of the candle, he sat waiting for the coming day, and planning dire vengeance. At sunrise he examined closely every hole, and crevice, and corner, and crack in both rooms, floor and floor, slabs, rafters, and shingles. He said, at last: "I think there is only one snake, and he is in ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... head of that branch of the family to which he belonged. Meanwhile the younger son, Archambaut, had likewise returned from his nursing; but he had the better chance—his limbs were sound and well developed, as God had made them. No dire accident, the consequence of foul neglect, had marred his shape, or tarnished his comeliness. So, one fine day, and as a natural consequence, mark you, of this fortunate circumstance, when Charles Maurice, the eldest son, had finished his course of study at Louis le Grand, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... punishable by statute. What was St. Meuse to me that for her I should mow my hirsute glories? But then, if people grew savage, they might pull my beard out by the roots. And there had been lately dawning on me the dire truth that its tawny hue was becoming somewhat freely streaked with gray, a colour I abhor, except in eyes. I made up ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... that Jim and the quaint little foundling were once more united, the story of the episode at Miss Doc's home necessarily followed to make the tale complete. Immensely relieved and grateful, to know that no dire calamity had befallen the camp's first and only child, the rough men nevertheless lost no time in conceiving the outcome ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... her head, Hippy. How much better than flying into a rage and threatening your enemy with dire things," reminded Grace. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... Phebe was having her first experience of bitter homesickness. She had always supposed herself immune from that dire disease, and, for some time, she had no idea what was the matter with her. In vain she tried to trace the cause of her complaint to malaria and to every known form of indigestion. She studied her symptoms carefully and ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... looking as if a most desperate encounter had taken place. Further examination proved that the first cell had also been desperately defended, for the combatants had lain in heaps. It was the same with the second, and as the adventurers went on without stopping to investigate, they found a dire repetition of the battle, and proofs that chamber after chamber had been a little battle-field in which many fell, right on to the extreme end of the range, all of which was in far better condition as to its stone-work than ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... his mind had been less harrowed with the looming and possibly dire climax of his own secret drama, would have laughed aloud at this melodramatic entrance to the grounds of one of his most intimate friends. He and Spaulding had walked from the train, but they were not detained as long as a gay party of young people ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... which I had sought to counteract my hunger pangs at the period of my dire need had developed the cigarette habit in me. This had subsequently become a cigar habit. I had discovered the psychological significance of smoking "the cigar of peace and good will." I had realized the importance of offering a cigar to some of the people I met. I would watch American ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... it was their own small store of wealth they had to look to; and so it came about that a penny was something to be seriously considered. When Rob MacNicol had to impose a fine of one penny, he knew it was a dire punishment; and if there was any alternative, the fine was rarely paid. The fund, therefore, which he had started for the purchase of an old and disused set of bagpipes, and which was to be made up of those fines, did not ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... house. Doating passion, pain of heart, terrible suggestions of despair, kept altering her countenance as she leaned against the mouldering door-post, imprisoned by the black mists that prevented her safely leaving the hovel. A sudden, dire, revolution in her religious impressions was wrought, or rather completed, in that dismal scene. David had more than once wrung her very soul by dark hints of self-destruction in the event of her ever ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... lights were lost and the depressed wayfarers struggled on with something of the feeling of a crew cast away at sea, who, thrown upon the crest of a rising billow, catch a near glimpse of a great ship, light and taut, riding serenely havenward to lose it the next in the dire waste. Presently the melancholy bird-notes that had puzzled Jack in the same vicinity days before broke out just in front of Barney, who was clambering along, the third man from the head of the little column. Again, after a long pause, the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... consumption alone can march beside them in the leadership of the destroyers. Typhoid, so easily conquerable, claims its annual thousands of sacrificed victims. And the slaughter of the innocents goes endlessly on, recorded only in the dire figures of infant mortality. To-day, as I write, the whole nation is thrilled with horror at the tragedy of 150 young lives snuffed out in a needless school panic in Cleveland. Had my pen the power, perhaps I could thrill ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... In dire anxiety the gods crowded around their beloved companion, but alas! life was quite extinct, and all their efforts to revive the fallen sun-god were unavailing. Inconsolable at their loss, they now ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... take fits of soul-saving, a most rational exercise, worldly wise and prudent—right too on the principles he had received, but not in the least Christian in its nature, or even God-fearing. His imagination began to busy itself in representing the dire consequences of not entering into the one refuge of faith. He made many frantic efforts to believe that he believed; took to keeping the Sabbath very carefully—that is, by going to church three times, and to Sunday-school as well; by never walking a step save to or ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... of the dire fate that was to overtake the RED CLOUD, and how close a call they were to have ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... is a faith Taught by no priest, but by their beating hearts Faith to each other: the fidelity Of fellow-wanderers in a desert place Who share the same dire thirst, and therefore share The scanty water: the fidelity Of men whose pulses leap with kindred fire, Who in the flash of eyes, the clasp of hands, The speech that even in lying tells the truth Of heritage inevitable as birth, Nay, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... situation now, the Prince was not in the least confounded. In his dire extremity he remembered the gifts his aunt had given him when they parted, and it seemed to him as if she must, with prophetic foresight, have divined this hour of need. He coolly opened the flint-bag that his ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... swelled. So swells the ocean, when upon His breast the full moon's beams have shone. Already in his mind he viewed Vasishtha at his feet subdued. He sought that hermit's grove, and there Launched his dire weapons through the air, Till scorched by might that none could stay The hermitage in ashes lay. Where'er the inmates saw, aghast, The dart that Visvamitra cast, To every side they turned and fled In hundreds forth disquieted. Vasishtha's pupils caught the fear, And every bird and every ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the Java Seas, we meet with pirates, sharks, serpents, volcanoes, unfriendly natives, adverse weather, geysers, fire at sea, and many other dire situations. ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... since had intimated that a sum of money would be paid on behalf of Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, if Mr. Mollett would call at Mr. Prendergast's office at a certain hour. The ultimate effect of all this was, that the car was granted for the morning, with certain dire threats as to ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... (etaies) qui soustenoyent les tailles de mon jardin, lesquelles estant bruslees, je fus constraint brusler les tables et plancher de la maison, afin de faire fondre la seconde composition. J'estois en une telle angoisse que je ne scaurois dire: car j'estois tout tari et deseche a cause du labeur et de la chaleur du fourneau; il y avoit plus d'un mois que ma chemise n'avoit seiche sur moy, encores pour me consoler on se moquoit de moy, et mesme ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... famous landmark that had made San Francisco famous over the world had been laid in ruins or burned to the ground in the dire catastrophe. Never was the fate of ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... and Golding's farms, Peach Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Frayser's Farm, Malvern Hill—dire echoes of the Seven Days' fighting had thronged into this hospital as into all others, as into the houses of citizens and the public buildings and the streets! All manner of wounded soldiers told the story—ever so many soldiers and ever so many ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... seductive charms Upon your torpid souls be shed: A crash like this, such dire alarms, Might burst the slumbers of ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... protect them from the inclemency of the winter, now fast approaching, and arms to put in their hands, by means of which they could assume the offensive and attack the enemy, or at least defend themselves—what more could they desire! The desperate nature of the situation, the dire need of just such additions to the equipment of the army, had been plainly communicated to Captain Jones, and he was resolved to effect the capture if it were humanly possible. The matter had also been reported to General Washington; ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... that it is a dire affront to an Arab if his first cousin marry any save himself without ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... different from the body. It was an Italian head: fuzzy, swarthy and very vivacious, that rose abruptly out of the standing collar like cardboard and the comic pink tie. In fact it was a head he knew. He recognized it, above all the dire erection of English holiday array, as the face of an old but forgotten friend name Ezza. This youth had been a prodigy at college, and European fame was promised him when he was barely fifteen; but when he appeared in the world he failed, first publicly as a dramatist and ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... physiognomy of the city editor, Banneker suspected something. As he sat writing page after page, conscientiously setting forth every germane fact, the recollection of that speculative, estimating smile began to play over the sentences with a dire and blighting beam. Three fourths of the way through, the writer rose, went to the file-board and ran through a dozen newspapers. He was seeking a ratio, a perspective. He wished to determine how much, in a news sense, the death of the son of an obscure East-Side ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... sphere; and no power that could be brought to bear could induce some of them to plant corn, make soap, kill pigs, or perform many other important duties in certain phases of the moon, for they would be positive if they did it would result in dire disaster. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... consoled himself with the thought that it was possible to hide his misfortune, which he attempted to do by means of an ample turban or head-dress. But his hair-dresser of course knew the secret. He was charged not to mention it, and threatened with dire punishment if he presumed to disobey. But he found it too much for his discretion to keep such a secret; so he went out into the meadow, dug a hole in the ground, and stooping down, whispered the story, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... before, was lying on the sanded floor with his face downward; my mother, in her short dressing-gown and flannel petticoat, was standing over him, her teeth set, her fists clinched, and arms raised, with a dire expression of revenge in her countenance. I thought at the time that I never saw her look so ugly—I may say so horrid; even now her expression at that moment is not effaced from my memory. After a few minutes she knelt down and put her ear close to his head, as if to ascertain whether he ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... were most affluent they were least secure, and men were put to strange shifts to protect their fortunes. Certain hoards, like jewels of tragic history, in time assumed a sort of evil personality, not infrequently exercising a dire influence over the lives of those who chanced to fall under their spells. It was as if the money were accursed, for certainly the seekers often came to evil. Of such a character was the Varona treasure. Don Esteban himself was neither better ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... ape-man a thing impossible of achievement. He must use his wits now and quickly too, for they were closing upon him. He might have turned and fled back through the corridor but flight now even in the face of dire necessity would but delay him in his pursuit of ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "Behold in dire distress were we, Under a giant's fierce command; But gained our lives and liberty From ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... his great hands till every hill echoed and the very trees quivered with the horrid sound. And the man-eating birds? Not one remained hidden. Each and every one rose terrified in the air, croaking and working its steely talons and sharp-pointed feathers in dire fear. ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... have the blessing of the Church. I, as your shepherd, made so by the holy Pope of Rome, command you, therefore, to be faithful to your new master—pray that God may bless his arms, and grant him victory over his ungodly enemy. My anger and dire punishment shall reach any one who refuses to obey this command. He who dares to stand by the heretic king, is himself a heretic, and a rebellious subject of the Church. Be on your guard; heavy punishment ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... him. Without a word she got up, gazed at him a moment with eyes dark from pain, shivered, and slipped away. She went straight to Winton. From her face, all closed up, tightened lips, and the familiar little droop at their corners, he knew something dire had happened, and his eyes boded ill for the person who had hurt her; but she would say nothing except that she was tired and wanted to go home. And so, with the little faithful governess, who, having been silent perforce nearly all the evening, was now full of conversation, they drove out into the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... He had become mischievous by the very activity of his intelligence. He was too zealous. There were occasions in France at that moment in which it was as well to be blind and deaf. It was impossible for the Republic, unless driven to it by dire necessity, to quarrel with its great ally. It had been calculated by Duplessis-Mornay that France had paid subsidies to the Provinces amounting from first to last to 200 millions of livres. This was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... at this juncture that tidings of the colony's dire distress were hurried to the King, and the Grand Monarch moved with rare good sense. He promptly sent for that grim old veteran whom he had recalled in anger seven years before. In all the realm Frontenac was the one man who could be depended upon to restore the prestige ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... of the London public, who in time of fearful distress came forward with money to feed and clothe hundreds and thousands of starving poor. Many a poor woman and man have asked me to express blessings to 'the people of my village' who rescued them in their dire distress. Perhaps you can give this message, which, as an outsider, I have never had an opportunity of doing." I only wish I could add that the gratitude of the Government was equal to that of the natives. Yes, Mr. Graham Anderson was an outsider, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... glorious palace stands. But other thoughts Minerva's mind employ'd Jove's daughter; ev'ry wind binding beside, She lull'd them, and enjoin'd them all to sleep, 460 But roused swift Boreas, and the billows broke Before Ulysses, that, deliver'd safe From a dire death, the noble Chief might mix With maritime Phaeacia's sons renown'd. Two nights he wander'd, and two days, the flood Tempestuous, death expecting ev'ry hour; But when Aurora, radiant-hair'd, had brought The third day to a close, then ceas'd the wind, And breathless came a calm; he, nigh ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Republican South might use war as a means of repudiating all the debts she owed to Englishmen. This would have been a very different thing from the insolvency of the Continental Congress during the Revolution. It was dire want, not financial infamy, that made the Revolutionary paper money 'not worth a Continental.' But it would have been sheer theft for the Jeffersonian South to have made its honest obligations ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... be allied, and that our mating, urged along on both sides as it was by strong personal ambitions was one of those so-called 'marriages of convenience' which almost invariably turn out to be marriages of such dire inconvenience to the two people most concerned. For one year we lived together in a chaos of experimental acquaintanceship. For two years we lived together in increasing uncongeniality and distaste. For three years ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... halcyon day he lived to see Unbroken, but by one misfortune dire, When fate had reft his mutual heart—but she Was gone-and Gertrude climbed a widowed father's knee. —Gertrude ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... (especially as we had to work so hard in it) made one's enjoyment less luxurious, but if my love for the sea had known no touch of disappointment on the cold swell of the northern Atlantic, it would have needed very dire discomfort to spoil the pleasure of living on these ever-varying blue waters, flecked with white foam and foam-like birds, through the clearness of which we now and then got a peep of a peacock-green dolphin, changing his colour with ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... states (kililoch, singular - kilil) and 2 self-governing administrations* (astedaderoch, singular - astedader); Adis Abeba* (Addis Ababa), Afar, Amara (Amhara), Binshangul Gumuz, Dire Dawa*, Gambela Hizboch (Gambela Peoples), Hareri Hizb (Harari People), Oromiya (Oromia), Sumale (Somali), Tigray, Ye Debub Biheroch Bihereseboch na Hizboch (Southern Nations, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... by the club-room fire Applaud my game with constant din: "Approach-work never was so dire, No mashies on this earth expire So near the tin; You ought to watch his tee-shots whizz At number nine. Hot stuff he is. The captain's lunar vase is his, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... stood for a space realizing the fact. He had had no dream, the voice had come to him from her, a summons from the depths of some dire necessity. He knew it as well as if he had heard her say so, as if she had been outside the window calling him to come. He knew she was beset, needed him, that her soul had cried to his and in its passionate urgency ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... a look behind the scenes will ever forget the three War Wednesdays of 1914, the 22nd and 29th of July and the 5th of August; for during that dire fortnight the fate of the whole world hung trembling in the ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... devote but a limited period, for at the end of some eighteen months he had become aware of his being seriously out of health. He had caught a violent cold, which fixed itself on his lungs and threw them into dire confusion. He had to give up work and apply, to the letter, the sorry injunction to take care of himself. At first he slighted the task; it appeared to him it was not himself in the least he was taking care of, but an uninteresting and uninterested person with whom he had nothing in common. ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... an aching heart indeed; for her compassion for the sufferings of others did not permit her to remain unmoved amidst such dire misfortunes. Still she never lost her habitual composure; her only occupation was to console the mourners: her first impulse on these occasions to bless God, and accept at His hands all that His providence ordained. It was well that she was resigned, and had learned the lesson of courage at the foot ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... furnace,—wherein he is striving to discover a lost secret in the potter's art that will make him both rich and famous,—and he utters a prayer for vengeance upon these Chandlers, and he parts from them. A time of destitution and of pitiful struggle with dire necessity, sleepless grief, and the maddening impulse of vengeance now comes upon him, so that he is wasted almost to death. He will not, however, abandon his quest for the secret of his art. He may die of hunger and wretchedness; he will not yield. At ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... the apartment, taking chills at the dingy articles she saw, in the midst of her heat. That she should have sprung from this! The thought was painful; still she could forgive Providence so much. But should it ever be known she had sprung from this! Alas! she felt she never could pardon such a dire betrayal. She had come in good spirits, but the mention of Evan's backsliding had troubled her extremely, and though she did not say to herself, What was the benefit resulting from her father's dying, if Evan would be so base-minded? she thought the thing indefinitely, and was forming ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had been present when they were abandoned. This man, seeing the cradle and recognising it by its make and the inscription on it, suspected the truth, and at once told the king and brought the man in to be examined. Faustulus, in those dire straits, did not altogether remain unshaken, and yet did not quite allow his secret to be wrung from him. He admitted that the boys were alive, but said that they were living far away from Alba, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... asceticism, but, with profound unselfishness and pity for his fellow-man, he strove to right the wrongs and correct the abuses of a cruelly indifferent and light-hearted society. He once said of himself: "Je serais peu flatte d'entendre dire que je suis un bel esprit; mais si on m'apprenait que mes ecrits eussent corrige quelques vices, ou seulement quelque vicieux, je serais vraiment sensible a cet eloge."[78] However, he was tolerant, as one who knows the weaknesses that flesh is heir ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... maitre de litterature, au seul maitre que j'aie jamais eu—a vous Monsieur! Je vous ai dit souvent en francais combien je vous respecte, combien je suis redevable a votre bonte a vos conseils. Je voudrais le dire une fois en anglais ... le souvenir de vos bontes ne s'effacera jamais de ma memoire, et tant que ce souvenir durera le respect que vous m'avez inspire durera aussi." For "je vous respecte" we are not entitled to read "je vous aime". Charlotte was so made that kindness shown ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... human mind adequately to sum up the good and evil of war, and strike a balance between the two. Most Christians cannot believe that war is in itself good. To those who have seen its hideous reality it is unquestionably a dire evil. Even the best results of war might have been better attained by other means. The good is often revealed rather than caused by it. A moral equivalent for war might have been found. Certainly no Christian could defend war save as a last resort, forced upon a nation in ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... the Scottish Universities were to be reformed the Earl was second on the committee. When the Conservative Government formed its Committee upon the Boer War, the Earl, a Liberal, was appointed chairman. When the decision of the House of Lords brought dire confusion upon the United Free Church of Scotland, Lord Elgin was called upon as the Chairman of Committee to settle the matter. Parliament embodied his report in a bill, and again he was placed at the head to apply ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie |
